Everything matched, covered in the same shade of lilac: walls, duvet, lampshade and curtains. Strike thought he might have guessed that order had been forcibly imposed on chaos in here, even had he not seen the rest of the house.

A large cork noticeboard ensured that there would be no unsightly pin marks on the walls. Kelsey had plastered the cork with pictures of five pretty young boys whom Strike assumed were One Direction. Their heads and legs protruded outside the frame of the board. There was a particular recurrence of a blond boy. Other than the pictures of One Direction, she had cut out puppies, mostly shih-tzus, random words and acronyms: OCCUPY, FOMO and AMAZEBALLS, and many recurrences of the name NIALL, often stuck onto hearts. The slapdash, random collage told of an attitude completely at odds with the precision with which the duvet had been laid on the bed and the exactly square position of the lilac rug.

Prominent on the narrow bookshelf was what looked like a new One Direction: Forever Young—Our Official X Factor Story. Otherwise the shelves held the Twilight series, a jewelry box, a mess of small trinkets that not even Hazel had managed to make look symmetrical, a plastic tray of cheap makeup and a couple of cuddly toys.

Banking on the fact that Hazel was heavy enough to make a noise coming upstairs, Strike swiftly opened drawers. The police would have taken away anything of interest, of course: the laptop, any scrap of scribbled paper, any telephone number or jotted name, any diary, if she had continued to keep one after Hazel had gone snooping. A mishmash of belongings remained: a box of writing paper like that on which she had written to him, an old Nintendo DS, a pack of false nails, a small box of Guatemalan worry dolls and, in the very bottom drawer of her bedside table, tucked inside a fluffy pencil case, several stiff foil-covered strips of pills. He pulled them out: ovoid capsules in mustard yellow labeled Accutane. He took one of the strips and pocketed it, closed the drawer and headed to her wardrobe, which was untidy and slightly fusty. She had liked black and pink. He felt swiftly among the folds of material, rifling through the pockets of the clothes, but found nothing until he tried a baggy dress in which he found what looked like a crumpled raffle or coat check ticket, numbered 18.

Hazel had not moved since Strike had left her. He guessed that he could have stayed away longer and she would not have noticed. When he reentered the room she gave a little start. She had been crying again.

“Thank you for coming,” she said thickly, getting to her feet. “I’m sorry, I—”

And she began to sob in earnest. Strike put a hand on her shoulder and before he knew it, she had her face on his chest, sobbing, gripping the lapels of his coat, with no trace of coquettishness, but in pure anguish. He put his arms around her shoulders and they stood so for a full minute until, with several heaving breaths, she stepped away again and Strike’s arms fell back to his sides.